Philadelphia 76ers: Sixers rebound with win over Jazz

Philadelphia 76ers' Spencer Hawes (00) goes up for a shot as Utah Jazz's Enes Kanter (0), of Turkey, defends in the first half of an NBA basketball game on Friday, Nov. 16, 2012, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)

PHILADELPHIA — Jrue Holiday was staring at the scoreboard in disbelief. He didn’t mind the numbers correlating to points. It was the time element that turned him a little incredulous.

Holiday and the 76ers made things difficult for themselves, stretching the final 26 seconds of game time across 12 minutes of real time before finishing off Utah, 99-93, Friday night.

“You start to think, ‘Man, this is a long time,’” Holiday said. “I think there were 11 seconds left, Nick (Young) gets fouled and, all of a sudden, there’s 10.3? It’s like, ‘Didn’t more time come off? Shouldn’t it be eight?’ Those last seconds, it was probably the longest 11 seconds.”

The Sixers (5-4) busted a two-game skid with a win in the middle game of their five-game homestand. They welcome Cleveland to Wells Fargo Center Sunday night.

It wasn’t easy, as the Sixers permitted the Jazz to knock down two 25-foot jump shots while committing two turnovers and two personal fouls in the game’s final 31 seconds.

They made a contest they led by 10 points with 1:22 remaining into a too-tight-to-call affair, with Utah clinging to hope on buckets from Paul Millsap and Gordon Hayward. It took an improbable blocked shot by Holiday, on Millsap’s last-ditch effort from beyond the arc, to officially close the book on the Jazz.

“Nah, not like,” said Holiday, when asked whether he’d ever ended a game on a block. “I guess I kind of gloved it. He threw it into my hand.”

The Sixers seemed more content to find a way to lose in the last 90 seconds than finishing off the road-weary Jazz, who have had a tiring East Coast swing that included a three-overtime win at Toronto and losses at Boston and Philly.

But the Sixers, coming off a disappointing loss Wednesday to previously winless Detroit, haven’t exactly been blowing the doors off their opponents in any realm of their game.

“We kept our cool, but we’ve got to find out a way to close out games toward the end,” said Richardson, the 11-year vet. “We gave up some turnovers, gave up some big 3s, gave up a foul that led to a basket. We’ve got to find ways to finish a game better.

“I told guys, ‘We’ve got to calm down and relax. If you don’t see a great pass, call a timeout,’ because we had timeouts. It’s all part of growing as a team. There are bumps and bruises along the way.

The Sixers were victims of a time crunch at Holiday’s expense late. Playing with a lead, Sixers coach Doug Collins tried to get away with sitting Holiday to open the fourth quarter. So much for that experiment, as the Jazz responded with an 8-0 spurt to even the score at 71-all.

That’s when Collins went to Holiday, who had been on the bench for fewer than two minutes, and told him to get back into the game.

“They were (outscoring us) 17-0 with Jrue out of the game,” Collins said, “so I knew I had to get him back in. I knew he’d be a little tired.”

After Holiday’s return, the Sixers used an 11-2 run in a 3-minute, 2-second span in the opening moments of the fourth quarter to pull away for good. Holiday, who in the first half made eight of his first 10 attempts, started the second half with eight misses. He made two of his next three, even pulling down an offensive rebound in the process, to get the ball rolling for the Sixers.

A driving, finger-roll lay-up, followed by another lay-up under the rim gave the Sixers an 88-82 edge.

The Sixers also got significant defensive contributions from Kwame Brown, who made his third appearance of the season. Brown turned in 24 minutes, leaning on the bigger bodies in Utah’s frontcourt to pair two points with six rebounds.